Milorad Ekmečić

Milorad Ekmečić ( Serbian - Cyrillic Милорад Екмечић ; * October 4, 1928 in Prebilovci ; † August 29, 2015 in Belgrade ) was a Yugoslav or Serbian historian, whose specialty was the history of the Serbs and Southern Slavs from the end of the 18th century to 1918 . He taught at the Philosophical Faculty in Sarajevo (1968–1992) and at the Philosophical Faculty in Belgrade (1992–1994). Ekmečić was a permanent member of the Serbian Academy and the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia-Herzegovina . He was the recipient of numerous awards for his extensive historiographical oeuvre on the modern history of Yugoslavia and the Balkans, as well as co-founder of the ultra-nationalist party SDS . Ekmečić's main historical achievement was a debate that began in the 1980s on fundamental issues in the roles of the two largest churches in the former Yugoslavia in the collapse of the state, in which the historian Ivo Banac participated on the Croatian side .

Life

Ekmečić was born in Prebilovci in the municipality of Čapljina in Herzegovina on October 4, 1928. In Čapljina he attended four-year elementary school and graduated from high school in Mostar in 1947, exempting him from high school. He lived through World War II in Čapljina until 1943. After the death of both parents, he joined the partisans in Prigilovci and was a member of the NOV from October 1944 to July 1945 . He graduated in 1952 from the Philosophical Faculty in Zagreb, where he also received his doctorate in 1958. After completing his doctoral thesis on the uprising in Bosnia 1875–1878 ( "Устанак у Босни 1875–1878." ), He enrolled for a year-long academic specialization in Princeton . After returning from the United States, he was employed at the Sarajevo Faculty of Arts until the outbreak of the war in Bosnia in 1992. From 1992 to 1994 he taught at the Philosophical Faculty in Belgrade. Since 1973 he was a member of the Bosnian Academy, since 1978 a member of the Serbian Academy.

Ekmečić became a permanent member of the Senate of the Republika Srpska in 1996 .

plant

Milorad Ekmečić has provided a profound scientific synthesis on agrarian societies, national ideologies and movements, and in particular the religious factors in southern Slavs and the history of the Balkans. In particular, Ekmečić made an important historiographical contribution to the typology of nationalism of the Southern Slavs, which he describes on the basis of the metamorphosis from the linguistic to the religious type of nationalism. He made this type responsible as Doomsday Nationalism as being primarily responsible for the collapse of the two Yugoslav states in 1941 and 1991.

In his early writings Ekmečić dealt mainly with the history of Bosnia. He is one of the leading experts on Bosnian historiography and appeared during the Bosnian War through his scientific polemics at the reception of the Bosnian historiography of the time. Since co-authorship with Vladimir Dedijer , Ivan Božić and Sima Ćirković in the history of Yugoslavia (1972), Ekmečić has worked on many topics from general Yugoslav history . After his magnum opus in two volumes of 662 and 842 pages on the origin of Yugoslavia ( Stvaranje Jugosavije: 1790–1918 , 1989), for which he received the coveted NIN award in 1990 , Ekmečić published on the history of Serbia in the First World War, as well after the dissolution of the entire Yugoslav state on modern Serbian history , as well as the historical fate of the Serbs in modern times ( Dugo kretanje između klanja i oranja. Istorija Srba u novom veku 1492–1992 , 2007). Today he is considered the doyen of Serbian historiography and, alongside Dobrica Ćosić, the eminence of the intellectual Serbian criticism of Western and European Balkan politics.

theses

Ekmečić developed an earlier thesis in the history of Yugoslavia (1972) that a religious watershed would be decisive for the feeling of belonging among the ethnic groups in Yugoslavia. He postulated that this religious basis as a definition and distinguishing feature of the Yugoslav peoples led to irrationality and baptized this type of nationalism as the nationalism of the Last Judgment ( nationalisam sudnjeg dana ). He borrowed the expression nationalism of the Last Judgment from a statement by Winston Churchill , who saw the national problem of the Irish settled on Judgment Day , since it was based on religion. In order to differentiate between types of nations, Ekmečić assumed that these three forms stem from a common language, a common religion or a stable and multi-century state development. The ideological criticism of the history of Yugoslavia was given to Ekmečić in particular, as he deviated from the then official thesis of a systematic independence of the peoples of Yugoslavia, which he compared with the thesis that every nation has its own Adam . He blamed the western states for the war in Yugoslavia and joined it on the 70th anniversary of the founding of Yugoslavia in 1988 with the slogan Europe built Yugoslavia, Europe will also break it down. Ekmečić defended the SANU memorandum as an appropriate response to the problems in Kosovo and Bosnia. After the western intervention under the leadership of the United States of America in the Balkan conflicts 1995–1999 (esp. Kosovo War ) Ekmečić developed a pronounced anti-American position. In Serbia he also belongs to the group with a strong pro - Russian orientation, which sees a supposed anti-Serbian reaction from the West as an extension of anti-Russian tendencies even after the end of the East-West conflict . In the collapse of Yugoslavia, Ekmečić sees a part of the Yugoslav communists who, in combination with American help, were mainly responsible for the national issues of the then Yugoslavia in favor of a Catholic solution in the Central European context.

The reconfiguration of Europe and the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall , with the collapse of older projects and state structures, the deep crisis in democracy that has been tensed to the major financial markets and global companies, have dominated Ekmečić's unrest in the last two decades the further development. For the most part, the traumatic childhood memories of the massacre of August 6, 1941 of a significant part of his family (including his father) of a total of 600 inhabitants in the village of Prebilovci near Čapljina by members of the Ustasha were the cause of his in-depth analyzes of the Yugoslav state project which he also won part of his theses about its failure. Ekmečić assumed that US foreign policy would steer the further historical development of the Serbs and, in his view, the historical achievement of a state unification of the Serbian population groups fragmented across the Balkans, as it was in the former Yugoslavia, which had been achieved in two hundred years will prevent by military means.

politics

Ekmečić campaigned for the independence of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and was a member of the SDS committee from 1992 . He was arrested in 1992 by the Bosnian Paramilitary Forces ( Zelene Beretke ), but then fled with his family to Belgrade, where he had to undergo an operation after the physical abuse. He was a supporter of Milošević , whom he himself referred to as a "moderate Degaullist ", but refused his request to move the Bosnian Serb leadership around Radovan Karadžić to accept the Vance-Owen Plan and settle the war. During the indictment before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, he was to testify on the defense side in the trial as a witness and expert on the modern history of Yugoslavia and the Balkans. Ekmečićs wanted to provide a scientific analysis of the Bosnian war, based on his work Spoljni uzroci građanskog rata u BiH 1992 ( Eng . The external reasons for the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992). Since the Milošević trial was ended due to the premature death of the accused, it did not come to that.

criticism

Ekmečić was considered in the scientific world as a “Serbian revisionist” historian who operated a revisionist, nationalist, Serbian historiography that justified the wars against Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo after the break-up of Yugoslavia - according to the Norwegian professor for political science and Yugoslavia expert Ramet in an article in Communist and Post-Communist Studies .

Plant reception

Ekmečić's work has been translated several times, the co- authorship of the Historija Jugoslavije (1972) into English and his dissertation Ustanak u Bosni: 1875–1878 (1960) into German.

Gale Stokes wrote in the Slavic Review about Ekmečić's book Ratni ciljevi Srbije 1914 (German: Serbia's war aims 1914) : It is a superbly researched book, written in a rich style appropriate to the complexity and passion of Serbia's dark but glorious year of 1914. and certified: Ekmečić is erudite, witty, analytical, and complex.

The considerable polemics on the Historija Jugoslavije flared up over Ekmečić's theses on the origins of nationalism among the peoples of Yugoslavia, about which there was a fruitful academic debate, especially with Mirjana Gross. In general, the Historija Yugoslavije was a response to the decentralized tendencies within individual republics of Yugoslavia that shaped the tense political situation at the beginning of the 1970s. While Tito had re-established party discipline by changing the Croatian party leadership and by resigning the two most important Serb opponents of a centralized form of government on October 21, 1972, so much was the criticism in SR Croatia, which only concerned the political leadership, by the The Historija Jugoslavije appeared in the SR Serbia in the autumn of 1972, including the historian Ekmečić and the main author of the Historija Jugoslavije , Vladimir Dedijer . The basis of the criticism of Ekmečić formed his departure from the general interpretation of the national developments of the 19th century, which challenged the basic requirements of the decentralists . In particular, he developed his thesis that language is the only concept of nation-building that can be followed up to the progressive rationalists and assumptions of the romantics. He concluded that since the concept of a language, a nation based on the ideas of the Serbian linguist and national ideologist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and his followers, was not implemented in the 20th century, was prevented by the religious affiliations of the Yugoslav peoples: “The fundamental democratic conception of a nation was based on the premise that [nations] should not be bound directly to a religion, but to a secular factor. While the South Slav reformers tried to realize this idea, they were only partially successful in their literary and cultural tasks, while the backward agrarian reality of the Balkans at the time prevented the success of their political tasks. ” The political debate about the Historija Yugoslavije was also the last great historical debate in the oppressive atmosphere of late Titoism, and the political persecution of historiography ended with the Yugoslav constitutional amendment in 1974.

For the English translation of the Historija Jugoslavije ( History of Yugoslavia ), Gale Stokes in The American Historical Review criticized Ekmečić's Unitarian view on questions of the Yugoslav idea: The spottiest section may be Milorad Ekmecic's discussion of the nineteenth century, which suffers from a none too subtle interpretation of Serbian national development and the erroneous determinist view that prior to 1903 "the trend of the national movements of the Yugoslav people was toward unification" (p. 251). Since Ekmecic is one of Yugoslavia's finest historians, however, he is able to balance these shortcomings with some excellent analysis of specific points .

Also led Stvaranje Jugoslavije (1989), which was considered by Ekmecic considered his magnum opus to controversies surrounding the theses in the subjects of nation and language, as well as the origin of the Yugoslav nationalities. Despite the critical reception by Srećko M. Džaja, Stvaranje Jugoslavije was described as the work of a “ Mavro Orbini of the twentieth century” (Mavro Orbini wrote Regno gli Slavi, the greatest historiographical achievement in Ragusan literature) and he was first and foremost admired “The incredibly erudition of the historian Ekmečić and his excellent style of moving within history. Ekmečić has mastered numerous historical disciplines, and so always remains lively and interesting in his expressions, even when he wanders on very long journeys. A real highlight are Ekmečić's historical portraits, in which the elegance of his style culminates, ” uttered.

Honors

For his books and the way he synthesized extensive historical studies in over 300 scientific articles, he received the July 27th Bosnia and Herzegovina Award, the ZAVNOBIH Award, the Vuks Special Award, the Vladimir Ćorović Award , the Pečat vremena for Science and social theory, the award of the Srpske književne zadruge for his life's work and the Kočićeva award.

For the two- volume study Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918 he had received the award for science and journalism in 1989 from the weekly magazine NIN.

He was the bearer of the Order of Honor with Gold Rays of the Serbian Republic and the Order of St. Sava I and the Order of St. Sava.

The news of Ekmečić's death accompanied an appreciation of the work of the historian in all major Serbian-language media. The weekly magazine Vreme printed an extensive section of the introduction from its last major historical study. Serbian television also quoted Ekmečić's probably most important work; in the program Dugo kretanje kroz istoriju profesora Ekmečića (The Long Road through the History of Professor Ekmečić) in memory of Ekmečić, the title was borrowed from the large-scale study Dugo kretanje između klanja i oranja (The Long Road between Battles and Harvests), which in turn was borrowed from Ekmečić followed a saying by Ivo Andirć.

A commemoration of the Government of the Republic of Serbia in the presence of Prime Minister Milorad Dodik took place on Aug. 31, 2015 in the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia, on Sep. held in Belgrade City Hall. The President of Serbia had already sent a telegram of condolences to the Ekmecics family and the members of the Serbian Academy during the state visit to China. The funeral was attended by the college of members of the Serbian Academy, numerous political officials, including the former President of the Serbian Republic Biljana Plavšič and the former high functionary of the Serbian Republic Momčilo Krajišnik.

Works (selection)

• Vladimir Dedijer , Milorad Ekmečić, Ivan Božić , Sima Ćirković : Istorija Jugoslavije . Belgrade, Prosveta, 1972.
• Stvaranje Jugoslavije: 1790-1918 . - Belgrade: Prosveta, 1989. - 2 vol. (662; 842 pp.)
• Živa reč Milorad Ekmečića / Milorad Ekmečić; (razgovore vodno) Miloš Jevtić . - Gornji Milanovac: Dečje Novine, 1990.
• Ratni ciljeni Srbije 1914 . - 2nd ed. - Belgrade: Prosveta, 1990.
• Ratni ciljeni Srbije: 1914-1918 . - Belgrade: Politika, BMG, 1992.
• Srbija između Srednje Evrope i Evrope . - Belgrade: Politika, BMG, 1992.
• Ustanak u Bosni: 1875-1878. - 3rd verb. Ed. - Belgrade, Službeni List SFRJ, Balkanological Institute SANU, 1996 (first edition 1960, Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša ). (German translation: The uprising in Bosnia, 1875–1878. Volume 1 and Volume 2, transl .: Rotraud Stumfohl, Histor. Inst. D. Univ. Graz, Dept. Southeast Europe, 1974)

Web links

• Ekmečić's biography at the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republika Srpska
• Report on the death of Milorad Ekmečić in TV culture magazine "OKO" in Serbian state broadcaster RTS - Дуго кретање кроз историју професора Екмечића - Ко је био Милорад Екмечић и због чега је његово дело значајно (The Long Walk through the history of the professor Ekmecic - Who was Milorad Ekmečić and why is his work important)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Milena Milanović (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon: Serbs who marked the 20th century - five hundred persons. Belgrade 2006, p. 170.
2. ↑ Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Politika, April 20, 2008 Portret bez rama: Milorad Ekmečić Cenjeni istoričar
4. ^ Cathie Carmichael: Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans. Nationalism and the Destruction of Tradition. Routledge, 2003, ISBN 1-134-47953-0 , p. 125.
5. ^ Vjekoslav Perica 2002: Balkan Idols - Religion and Nationalism in Yugolsav States . Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-514856-8 . Here p. IX
6. ↑ Milena Milanović (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon: Serbs who marked the 20th century - five hundred persons. P. 170
7. ^ New York Times, November 26, 1994 Five Years Later: Eastern Europe, Post-Cummunism - A special report; Ethnic and Religious Conflicts Now Threaten Europe's Stability
8. ↑ NIN, January 14, 1990, Polemika o Jugoslaviji - "STVARANjE JUGOSLAVIJE 1790–1918" MILORAD EKMEČIĆ Polemika o Jugoslaviji ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Politika, May 6, 2011 Nagrada Pečat Vremena Miloradu Ekmečiću
10. ↑ Pečat, January 11, 2011 MILORAD EKMEČIĆ Mi smo za Ameriku narod koji u sebi nosi opasan virus
11. ↑ Vecernje Novosti, August 28, 2010 Milorad Ekmečić: Evropa nije čokolada već vojni blok
12. ↑ Pečat, May 12, 2011 Jedino protiv srba su svi slozni
13. ↑ NIN, January 7th and 14th 2010, complete copy from Nova srpska plitička misao - Časopis za političku teoriju i društvena iztraživanja, January 16, 2010 Kuda ide Srbija - Budućnost gledamo kroz tamu
14. ↑ ibid. NIN, January 14, 1990
15. ^ Sonja Biserko, The Serbian elites and Genocide in Bosnia. The Serbian elites and Genocide in Bosnia (PDF; 160 kB)
16. ↑ Copy of an interview by Politika with Ekmečić from May 5, 2007 Национализам судњег дана ( Memento from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
17. ↑ ibid NIN, January 7th and 14th, 2010
18. ↑ ibid. Pečat, May 12, 2011
19. ↑ ibid. NIN, January 14, 1990
20. ↑ Milorad Ekmečić, CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS OR A NEW GLOBAL SYSTEM OF GREAT POWERS? CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS OR A NEW GLOBAL SYSTEM OF GREAT POWERS?
21. ↑ Radio slobodna Evropa, September 10, 2010 'Memorandumska' Srbija prošlost ili sadašnjost?
22. ↑ ibid. NIN, January 7th and 14th, 2010
23. ↑ Milena Milanović (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon: Serbs who marked the 20th century - five hundred persons. P. 170.
24. ↑ Politika, Aug. 30, 2015 Затишје пред буру Поводом смрти академика Милорада Екмечића (1928–2015)
25. ↑ Milorad Ekmečić 2014: Dugo kretanje izmedu kljanja i oranja - istorija srba u novom veku (1492–1992). P. 555
26. ↑ Standard, March 11, 2011 via the wayback archive MILORAD EKMEČIĆ: SLOBODAN MILOŠEVIĆ I JA ( Memento from August 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
27. ↑ ibid. MILORAD EKMEČIĆ: SLOBODAN MILOŠEVIĆ I JA ( Memento from August 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
28. ^ Sabrina Petra Ramet: The denial syndrome and its consequences - Serbian political culture since 2000. In Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Elsevier Publishing Company Inc. Philadelphia US., Vol 40 I, 2007, pp 41-58. Here p. 46.
29. ↑ Gale Stokes 1974: Reviewed Works: Ratni Ciljevi Srbije 1914 . by Milorad Ekmečić; Srbija I Jugoslovensko Pitanje 1914–1915. Godine . by Dragoslav Janković. Slavic Review, 35/1, 167-168, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. [1]
30. ↑ Wolfgang Keßler 1978: Reviewed Work: Nationalism among Serbs and Croats 1830–1914. Analysis and typology of the national ideology by Wolf Dietrich Behschnitt. Yearbooks for the History of Eastern Europe, New Series, Vol. 26, H. 4 (1978), pp. 623-625. Here p. 624 [2]
31. ↑ Ivan Lovrenčić: Obituary for Milorad Ekmecic [3]
32. ↑ Ivo Banac 1994: Yugoslavia . The American Historical Review, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Oct. 1992): 1084-1104, Oxford University Press [4]
33. ↑ Ivo Banac 1994: Yugoslavia . P. 1090
34. ↑ Ivo Banac 1994: Yugoslavia . P. 1090
35. ↑ Ivo Banac 1994: Yugoslavia . P. 1092
36. ↑ Gale Stokes 1978: Reviewed Work: History of Yugoslavia by Vladimir Dedijer, Kordija Kveder . The American Historical Review, vol. 83, no. 1 (Feb. 1978): 209-210, Oxford University Press. [5]
37. ↑ Srećko M. Džaja 1989/90: Mavar Orbin dvadesetog stoljeća . Jukić 19-20, Sarajevo, 1989/90. Quoted in Ivan Lovrenčić: Obituary for Milorad Ekmecic [6]
38. ↑ Затишје пред буру Поводом смрти академика Милорада Екмечића (1928–2015)
39. ↑ In Memoriam: Milorad Ekmečić (1928–2015)
40. ↑ http://www.rts.rs/page/tv/sr/story/20/RTS+1/2025673/Dugo+kretanje+kroz+istoriju+profesora+Ekme%C4%8Di%C4%87a.html Dugo kretanje kroz istoriju profesora Ekmečića
41. ↑ У Бањалуци одржана комеморација акедемику Милораду Екмечићу
42. ↑ Saučešće Nikolića eg of the abovementioned smrti akademika Ekmečića
43. ↑ Sahranjen akademik Milorad Ekmečić